Timberwolves Roundup: Edwards, Towns reaching milestones, defense turning heads

The Minnesota Timberwolves have had a big week so far, and it isn’t over yet.

The NBA world is talking about the Wolves, including two major milestones achieved by Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns during Wednesday’s win over the Denver Nuggets.

Milestones achieved by Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards and Karl-Anthony Towns

On Wednesday in Denver, the Wolves hung 124 points on the Nuggets and had a couple of players achieve significant individual milestones along the way.

Karl-Anthony Towns drained a 3-pointer to achieve 10,000 points. He’s only the second player in franchise history to reach the milestone, along with Kevin Garnett. Not only that, he achieved the mark in 95(!) fewer games.

Not to be outdone, Anthony Edwards notched 2,000 career points on the same night.

Additionally, Edwards became the youngest player in NBA history to make 10 3-pointers in a game, the only Timberwolves player to ever to do it, and the only player so far this season league-wide to do it.

He also joined some pretty impressive company when it comes to achieving 2,000 career points as quickly as he did.

Of course, the accolades are nice, but it really just reinforces what we thought we already knew: Towns is a superstar, and Edwards will be soon. It also underscores just how frustrating it is that Towns has had exactly one playoff appearance in his career.

The Timberwolves defense continues to turn heads

The Wolves had a top-10 defense for much of the first few weeks before it fell off a bit while they lost five straight. Since then, however, things have stabilized.

For a team that has been bottom-10 in defensive efficiency since 2015, ranking No. 14 in defensive rating one-third of the way through the schedule is downright solid. And outside of adding Patrick Beverley and upping Jaden McDaniels and Jarred Vanderbilt’s minutes, the main rotation has largely been the same as last season.

The updated scheme — playing ball-screens at the level of the ball instead of drop coverage — obviously has made a huge difference, but the Wolves are simply competing harder and proving to have much crisper rotations than what we’re accustomed to seeing.

Various outlets have taken notice, including Ben Ladner over at FanSided’s The Stepback.

Ladner notes the Wolves’ propensity to force opponent turnovers, which remains tops in the league. Opponents turn the ball over on a whopping 17.5 percent of their possessions against the Wolves, which certainly suggests that Minnesota has been some things right on that end of the floor. Plus, live-ball turnovers turn into transition offense the other way.

Of course, there are plenty of contributing factors to turnover rate, and it would be foolish to think that this model of defense will remain successful for the entirety of the seasons.

The Wolves need to continue working on defending without fouling and securing defensive rebounds. If they can do that, they should be able to weather the storm if the turnovers begin to dry up somewhat.